


survivors of the same kind

by laikaspeaks



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Consensual Daemon Touching, Daemon Settling, F/F, Requited Unrequited Love, Same-Sex Daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28272861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laikaspeaks/pseuds/laikaspeaks
Summary: Rapunzel's soul takes an unexpected form. So does Cassandra’s.
Relationships: Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53
Collections: Cassunzel Gift Exchange 2020





	1. feed the dying light

Cassandra’s daemon paced back and forth. 

Gone was the beautiful gold of his pelt and eyes, instead he was reduced to silver and black. A creature made all from moonlight, untouchable. Rapunzel could see the trees through him as he moved, and it made every part of her scream out in horror. Pascal burrowed into her neck, squeaking soft reminders of his presence. That he was here and they were together no matter what. 

There was a time that Pascal could perch on Owl’s head and run his beak over those soft ears until the cheetah huffed with happiness. His endless energy would drain away, and Owl would stretch his long body nearby while she painted, and even pose to let her sketch him along with Cass. Now he circled around her in a restless orbit, scarcely looking at her except for glances that were filled with enough distant pity that it chilled her more than Cassandra’s rage. 

Cassandra scanned the area, her searing blue eyes bright with malicious amusement. She was paler than Rapunzel could ever remember being, her entire body encased in black, gleaming armor from the neck down. “Where’s your frog, Raps? I can’t have him running off to tattle on us, can I?”

Rapunzel’s face creased, and she shook her head. “ _Pascal_ isn’t here, Cass. You know he’s not.” For others it might be an unbelievable lie, but for Rapunzel it might actually be possible.

Cassandra snorted, and strode closer. Rapunzel refused to flinch aside, even as Cass reached out to grip Rapunzel’s hair and tug it aside, not rough but not as gently as she could either. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

“Cass, don’t -” Rapunzel’s heart thundered in her mouth. Cassandra’s hand was too close. A twitch of her thumb and she would be touching Rapunzel’s daemon… an act so taboo that even enemy soldiers didn’t cross that line. 

“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, _princess_.” Despite the way she spat the words, Cassandra did withdraw her hand to a safer distance. “Look at that. No wonder you hid him away.”

Instead of the chameleon of Rapunzel’s childhood or the cockatiel of her impulsive lie, there was a dark, wrinkled creature clinging just under Rapunzel’s ear. A small, fluffy black and yellow bat, which did his best to burrow his face into her hair, as though that might conceal him. Rapunzel needed to say something - anything - even though she wanted nothing more than to put her hands over her daemon and hide him from that darkly pleased stare. 

“I wasn't trying to hide him there, Cass. He’s always rode on my shoulders. You know that.” If she did try to hide him it wasn't out of shame. Though she didn't expect Cassandra cared.

“Really? Because from where I’m standing the perfect princess didn’t want anyone to see her shriveled, ugly little soul.”

Rapunzel clenched her jaw. Even she had her pride - how could she bear her heart when Cassandra would only throw it back in her face? The barefoot, unsettled princess, Cass called her once, and it was only now that Rapunzel realized that Cassandra never quite shed that image. Had they ever really seen each other clearly?

“You don’t mean that.”

Cassandra chuckled. “Don’t I, _Raps_? You really think it's a coincidence that your precious soul is a flying rat?”

Rapunzel’s soul took his shape with a bond severed with a dark sword and darker ambition. In that moment and in the days that came after, when she realized that Cassandra may very well never return to her side again. That realization was cut into her so deeply that her very soul bore the marks. Pascal - _Rapunzel_ \- was a creature that lived and died by moonlight. 

“No, I don’t.”


	2. your palms are sweet as pain

In the end Zhan Tiri was defeated by her own hubris - too convinced of the combined power of the sundrop and moonstone to fear ordinary people with ordinary courage. Some things would never be the same. Not Corona, not Rapunzel, and certainly not Cassandra. Her daemon walked by her side wavering as a phantom, little more than a cheetah shaped heat-shimmer in the light of day. 

“Have there been any changes with Owl? He seems-“ Worse. Rapunzel didn’t want to think about what that could mean. It was bad enough that Cassandra was planning to leave

Cassandra closed her eyes let out a slow sigh, as though she had been holding her breath for such a long time. " _Her_ name is Fidella."

There was a whole story in those words. A hundred different layers of hints without context and offhand comments snapping abruptly into place. Most daemons were the opposite sex of their human, and there were... well, certain implications if they were not. Cassandra's daemon never spoke, and as private as Cass was they never questioned that.

That secret must have eaten at her insides like acid, until every tender thing inside her was blistered and scarred. Rapunzel understood.

"Hold out your hands."

It was a relief when Cass did so without further prompting, though her eyebrows drew together in her trademark expression that landed somewhere between curious and irritated.

Pascal peeked from Rapunzel’s sleeve and clambered out onto her palm. He clung to Rapunzel's fingers just long enough for Cassandra to withdraw. Just long enough for Cass to deny this contact that was akin to reaching her hand into Rapunzel's chest and grasping her raw, beating heart. This was the kind of thing that could only be given and accepted freely.

After a half dozen silent, painful heartbeats Pascal dropped from Rapunzel’s fingers into Cassandra’s cool palms.

How could she describe something that could only be felt? It was intimate as that day when she first looked into Cassandra's eyes and saw true laughter. It was that moment of insight, that spark of recognition. Except it was Rapunzel being revealed, and it was a moment that drew on and on in a sweet-sunburn-tenderness that was so akin to agony that it was a struggle to remember to breathe.

She reached up and took Cassandra's face in her hands, as much to feel something real as to keep their eyes locked together. Part of her wanted to say the words she held back for so long. To let Cassandra know she wasn't alone and that whatever else was or wasn't between them they were the same. Yet... she couldn't. It was one thing to ask Cass to return in some distant future, it was another to ask her to return to Rapunzel. She couldn't ask Cass to reserve some shard of her broken heart, not when Rapunzel wished for it so dearly, so selfishly.

"I know, Raps." Cassandra looked away, but it was only to gaze down at Pascal with that rare softness that made Rapunzel's heart tremble each time she caught a glimpse. One of her sword-hardened thumbs smoothed tentatively over Pascal's head, and she let out a breathless laugh when he snuggled up against the curve of her palm. "You... don't have to say anything if you don't wanna. I - I mean you can't get more clear than this."

Rapunzel startled a good foot to the side when Owl - Fidella - appeared at her elbow. Silent as always. Cassandra didn’t speak either, but the way she looked pointedly between Rapunzel and Fidella strongly suggested her intentions. Pascal fluttered against Cassandra’s palm the same way that Rapunzel’s heart battered against her ribs.

Would Cassandra offer if she knew how much Rapunzel thought about this very moment? Even Rapunzel didn’t understand why her mind kept wandering there between sleeping and waking. Yet she dreamed of it still - pressing her _soul_ into Cassandra’s hands. Touching hers in turn. “I just… is it too much? It’s too much. You really don’t have to Cass.”

“Do you not want to?” The note of actual vulnerability in Cassandra’s voice prompted Pascal to wiggle from her fingers, clamber up her arm, and tuck into the curve of her jaw. Whatever he whispered, it made her drawn-up shoulders lower by slow degrees. 

Rapunzel shook her head hard. Would Cassandra even understand the panic that lanced through her chest? Had the part of Rapunzel that was so deeply marked by Mother - the part of her that plucked at the threads so sweetly as she wove her clever web - made itself known? Had she somehow intended this gift as a noose around Cassandra's neck? "I didn't do this so I could... I swear that isn't why I did any of this. You don't have to let me… touch her, just because I did.”

“I know.” Cass looked back up at Rapunzel. Perhaps there was too much between them to easily forget, but her expression was so close to faith that Rapunzel had to rub her hand roughly over her eyes. That was more than she ever hoped. 

This time when Fidella lifted her head Rapunzel reached out. She half expected her hand to pass through like something from a ghost story. Instead her palm pressed firmly against the top of the phantom daemon’s head, and an electric jolt shot up her arm and left her breathless.

Cass let out a slow, overwhelmed hiss between her teeth. "Shit."

"I know." Rapunzel felt her mouth move so surely she must have been the one to say that, but she was too focused on other things to even process conscious thought. She ran her hand down the cheetah's back, and earned the huffing little growl that once made her so envious of Pascal. How she had longed, in some shameful secret part of herself, to feel that rumble through the plush, velvet pelt. Rapunzel cupped Fidella’s head in her hands, massaging at her jaw and neck, and nearly melted when Cassandra’s daemon let out a series of pleased chirps. 

The insubstantial moonlight of Fidella’s body slowly solidified under Rapunzel's touch, corporeality spreading outward from her touch like a drop of paint blooming in water.

"Hello," Rapunzel murmured, feeling a damning, giddy smile spread over her face, "Welcome back, Fidella."

"Hey, Raps." It wasn't Cass. For the first time in Rapunzel's memory the daemon spoke in a voice that was deeper and warmer than she expected, and yet so utterly Cassandra. A warm tongue flicked out and rasped over the tip of her nose, drawing a stunned giggle from her throat. "It's good to be back."

Maybe Cassandra would return; maybe she never would. All Rapunzel knew was that their bond ran deeper and stronger than anything… and she knew in her heart that they would meet again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering about the daemon choices: 
> 
> Rapunzel's daemon is a bat because they're highly social animals! People who have bat souls tend to be highly community-oriented, communicative, and warm. 
> 
> Cassandra's daemon is a cheetah because they're highly specialized predators that practically vibrate with anxiety in captivity. They tend to be loners, but are fairly docile for a big cat species to the point that they were favored as hunting companions by Egyptian royalty. Basically MADE for Cassandra lbh.

**Author's Note:**

> For Bobadragon!


End file.
